Experience UCLA by embracing possibility

If you are reading this, looking for tailor-made instructions before you embark on a new segment of your life, you’re not going to find it.

You’ll be disappointed to find that there are no free passes in life, nor are there profound words of wisdom I can impart that will mold you into the ideal person you aim to become. Thinking back, I ask myself what I would have wanted to know when I first stepped into these now familiar halls, something I could have kept in mind to enhance these past three years of my life.

It is this: absolutely nothing.

I have nothing to tell my former self, nor do I have anything to tell you that would improve on your forthcoming experience. Embrace the nothingness. Embrace the fact that you are going, unguided, into uncharted waters.

Let it flow. The next few years may redefine your life, or they may not. You may come out a different person from when you first came in, or you may come out exactly the same. After all of this is done with, you’re going to look back and say there were things that were great, and there were things you could have done better. In the end, it’s going to be an experience: your experience. That’s what matters.

You will make mistakes: count on that. Mistakes exist to indicate room for improvement, and nobody is perfect enough not to need them. If you don’t make them, then you’re not testing the true limits of your abilities. Do not be content with the illusion of accomplishment. Keep pushing yourself. Keep making mistakes. Make the most out of them that you possibly can.

Your convictions will waiver, but the strongest convictions are founded on a willingness to question yourself. It is only by subjecting your beliefs to the fires of opposition that you realize the true mettle of your character. To doubt is not a sign of weakness. Weakness is to cower in the face of challenges by assuming a false sense of security in what you currently hold to be true.

Only by realizing that there are viewpoints other than your own can you gain a multifaceted understanding of key issues around you. You grow by your willingness to constantly re-evaluate your belief system.

Yet, you must resist the urge to succumb to the popular. Certainty comes at a premium, and unreliable media outlets and mob mentality only serve to complicate this already convoluted and ambiguous world. Know where you stand, assess your sources and discern your own understanding. Question authority. Question popular belief. Question yourself.

I cannot give you the answers to life’s complexities because there are no right or wrong answers. Life is a series of trade-offs that you simply have to figure out for yourself. Go find the answers that work best for you, and I assure you that what experience has in store will be infinitely more staggering than what I can sum up in these mundane lines.

Ong is the 2009-2010 assistant Viewpoint editor. E-mail him at rong@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.

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